1. I'lie use of the word by Jesus in the sense of rriiss-hriiring.—On three separate occasions Jesus sjioke of cross-bearing as essential to discipleship. I'lie first is in Mt 10^, when He sent out the Twelve on a special preaching tour at the close of the Galitean ministry, just a little over a year before His death. Meyer, in loco, considers this passage proleptically misplaced by St. Matthew, and thinks it should come after Mt 16". But there is no need of this supposition, for the figure of bearing one's cross would be quite intelligible to Jews since the days of Antiochus Epiphanes, Alexander Janna;us, and Varus. Josephus (BJ V. xi. 1) even says that Titus crucified so many that there were not places for the crosses, or crosses for the victims. The Jews themselves had not favoured crucifixion, save Alexander Janna;us, the ' Thracian ' in spirit. Broadus (on Mt 16")
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rightly denies that thi.s saj'ing of Jesus about bearing one's cross is an anaclironism before His own crucifixion. He did bear His own cross (Jn 19''), perhajjs the crosspiece properly speaking ; but so did the criminals usually who were cruci- fied, for Plutarch says : iKaa-ros KaKoipywv (K(pipei T&v aiiToO (TTa.vp6v (de Sera Num. Vinci. 9). It is a general illustration that the disciples could have easily understood, though they were not yet able to see the evident prophetic allusion to Christ's own literal experience. It is not without special point that Jesus thus expressed the fundamental principle of selfsacrilice under the image of the cross. He did not plainly say that He would be crucified till shortly before His death (Mt 20"), but Jesus Himself is conscious of the death on the cross which ' He himself will be called upon to endure' (Meyer on Mt 16-'').
The second time that Christ spoke of cross- bearing was when He rebuked Peter for playing the part of Satan (Mk ^■>\ Mt 16^*, Lk 9®). On the iirst occasion the Master was giving directions to the disciples about their preaching, but here He addressed this vivid condition of discipleship ' unto air (Lk 9^) as a ' deterrent in a high degree, sug- gesting a procession of furciferi headed by Jesus and consisting of His followers ' (Swete on Mk 8^''). Many of the followers of Judas and Simon in Galilee had been crucified {Jos. Ant. XVII. x. 10). St. Luke adds 'daily, ' though the aorist term ipdrw is used. The permanence of this cross- bearing is emphasized by the present tense of ' follow ' {dKo\ov$elToi).
St. Luke alone gives the third use of the expres- sion (14"), and it is in Perrea, not long before the raising of Lazarus from the dead. In this instance ;8oo-T(if«, not atpa, is used, the only NT example of the figurative, as Jn 19" is the only NT instance of the literal, use of the verb with aravpdi (Plummer, Internat. Crit. Com. in loco).
2. The term ' Crucified ' comes to be a favourite one with the name of Jesus. The angels at the empty tomb speak of 'Jesus the Nazarene, the Crucified One (^l-riaovv ^iiTeiTe rbv 'Sa^ap-qvbv rbv iaravpuiihov, Mk 16«, Mt 28*). St. Peter in his great address on the day of Pentecost charges the Jews with having crucified Jesus (Ac 2*). He repeats the charge when brought before the Sanhedrin (4'"). St. Peter elsewhere always (Ac gso i()39^ I p 22->) speaks of Christ as hanging on a tree (^iJXov) ; but this non-classical use of ^iXov as equal to gibbet or cross (the stocks in Ac 16-'') is found in the LXX as tr. for Heb. i'y (Gn 40'" etc.). St. Paul so uses the term also in Ac 13°' and Gal 3'^ (quotation here from Dt 21^). Each example in' the NT is a quotation from the LXX. But in the LXX ivKov does not refer to crucifixion, but rather to the prohibited nailing up of unburied bodies after the manner of the heathen nations (1 8 31'"). But St. Tan! s|M>,-iks rather of 'Christ crucified,' more properly, ' ( 'hrist as crucified' (pre- dicate), XpiaThv etTTavp'ujijii'of (I Co 1='), and once he sharply accents the idea Ijy saying 'l-qa-ovp Xpia-riip Kai TovTov ((TTavpuf/^vov (1 Co 2°), in opposition to his Judaizing opponents. This was his method of openly setting forth (■wpoeyp6.<p-q) .lesus as crucified (Gal 3'), like a public placard. The blindness of the enemies of Christ comes out in St. Paul's use of the term with the Lord of ylory (1 Co 2'), and yet He was crucified in weakness (2 Co 13^). Rev 11' merely identifies Jerusalem as the city \\here Jesus was crucified.
3. The cross as the ejntoTiic of the (fospel.—The disciples naturally passed to this idea when they came to understand the meaning of the death of Christ. The cross tliat had seemed the destruction of their hopes (Lk 24=') now became the symbol of the gospel of grace. ' But we preach Christ cruci-
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fied ' (1 Co P'), says St. Paul, as opposed to Jewish spectacular apocalyptics and Greek philosophizing ; and lie preached nothing else, not simply at Corinth, for he had done so at Athens (Ac 17^'), and this was the settled purpose of his ministry (ICo 2-). It was not the example of Jesus that St. Paul preached, but Jesus as the crucified Saviour, who, and not Paul, was crucified ' in your behalf ' (1 Co 1'^). It was, in fact, by His death on the cross that Jesus made the sacrifice for our sins, in our behalf, and in our stead. We are under (utto) a curse (Gal 3'°), and Christ became a curse (Kardpa) for (I'/ir^p) us, and so redeemed us from (iK) or out from under the curse of the Law (v.'-'). He became the curse, and came between us and the overhang- ing law of God.